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Closing the books on the recall trainwreckBy Nick, Section News
Where to start...
We've covered the Andy Dillon recall effort from its inception and even though technically the battle isn't over it's a topic crying out for a little closure. First, the thirty-second recap... Andy Dillon is the Democrat Speaker of the House. Andy Dillon was the leading legislative player in the Dem effort to engineer the first government shutdown in Michigan history last fall. Andy Dillon rammed through over a billion dollars in tax hikes after the shutdown. Wayne County Taxpayers Association chair Rose Boegart called in Michigan Taxpayers Association boss and former Republican legislator Leon Drolet to assist in her efforts to recall the Speaker. Efforts were launched. MTA hired Natioal Ballot Access to assist the WCTA in signature gathering efforts. Democrats responded by sending paid House staffers into the district to engage in aggressive voter intimidation. Democrats refused to turn over time slips to Detroit area WDIV TV, all but proving they were playing politics on the taxpayers' dime. Democrats hired at least one convicted felon to follow petition gatherers to their homes and to scare away possible petition signers. There was and is no record the individual has ever cast a ballot. The MTA accumulated and turned into the Secretary of State approximately 15,500 signatures, 11,300 of which the organization claimed to have validated. Except, it looks like they weren't valid. Read on...
Late Friday afternoon the Bureau of Elections rejected 7,515 of the signatures leaving only 8,224 on the books. The minimum needed is 8,724. That puts recall advocates 500 signatures short. At least. All indications are that once the BoE reached that 500 signature mark they just stopped checking. There could be hundreds of additional invalid signatures. Thousands.
That's the what. Now, the why... where to start... We could have a macro discussion about the philosophical underpinnings of the recall process, about the appetite in-district to remove their representative who was and is the most powerful man in the legislature. We could talk about MDP's voter intimidation and disenfranchisement strategies. We could discuss the difference between grass and astro-turf. Instead I'm going to be pragmatic. Nearly half of the recall petition signatures were tossed out because National Ballot Access did some Grade F low class sloppy work. (NBA is the group that successfully gathered the requisite signatures to put the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative in front of voters in 2006, a gathering effort, it should be noted, that allowed circulators to be registered anywhere in Michigan.) Whenever a group endeavors to collect signatures and brings on petition circulators for an in-district effort there's one primary function that comes before anything else. VERIFY your potential circulator lives in the district! You check the drivers license, you check the voter registration card and you check the qualified voter file. All three or none at all. And if anything doesn't mesh you don't let that man or woman anywhere within ten feet of your petition forms because bad things might happen. I spent the weekend trying to track down Leon Drolet and we finally touched base early this morning. He won't throw National Ballot Access under the proverbial bus... they're working right now to try to prove at least 500 of the discarded signatures were and are valid. Me? I don't have to watch my tongue... bus tires, meet the NBA... now, would someone please tell that Semi truck to rev it's engine and get over here to finish the job? I'm certainly not an expert but I've got a little experience in the petition game. These "professionals" weren't just sloppy, they were down right negligent. I haven't reviewed the petitions personally but from what I've been told there are circulators from Detroit with their names all over them. Detroit doesn't even rhyme with "Redford Township." The most frustrating part about all of this is that the left has been screaming about astro-turf for months and darn it all if the carpet didn't fatally trip up the earnest and sincere efforts of thousands of concerned Michigan moms and dads who're struggling like never before to make ends meet thanks to Dillon's job killing legislative efforts. To hear NBA tell the story this isn't over. They're working to verify 7%+ of the disqualified signatures and they've got until next week to present their arguments to the Secretary of State. Of course the Dems and their consultants claim they've got thousands of additional complaints to file should it come to that. The Michigan Taxpayers Association? They're talking about a Supreme Court decision that once held a potential voter cannot be denied his other rights in the democratic process simply because he declines to register to vote. The thinking is that the ruling, if applied in this instance, would allow X number of signatures to make their way back onto the valid side of the ledger. Which only begs the question... if there are X number of signatures that could be revalidated this way and X equals the number of signatures gathered by entirely unregistered circulators and X equals a number equal to or greater than 500 (sorry about the algebra) then does that mean NBA was so sloppy in their circulator recruitment efforts that they actually hired men and women who weren't even registered to vote? Anywhere? Period? It's either that or they believe the Supremes' ruling would revalidate every out-of-district-gathered signature period, even if the circulator was a registered voter. Again, disclaimer, I'm not Constitutional expert... but that's just plain stupid. Follow that argument to it's logical conclusion... I'm not registered to vote in Kentucky but by that logic shouldn't I have the right to vote there? Voting is, after all, a democratic activity separate from actual voter registration. And hey, while we're at it, who needs registration? It has zero impact over other democratic activities? Cool. My thirteen year old brother will be excited to vote in this year's Presidential election. The MTA would realistically have until primary ballots are printed to move their appeal through the courts. I don't see it happening. For all intents and purposes the recall effort is dead in the water, the victim as much of internal "professional" mismanagement as of the Democrats' efforts to disenfranchise voters. There'll be a few limbs flailing about over the next couple of weeks but don't mistake that with life. But that doesn't mean Andy Dillon is off the hook. The man still faces a three-way primary challenge and what could be a tough battle in November. And, bonus, taxpayers in Redford Township and across Wayne County interested in a change in Lansing's leadership have recourse together this time. There aren't any laws against out-of-district primary or general election campaign activities. Maybe the good people at National Ballot Access would find that sort of effort a little more to their liking. And could recruit volunteers for free. Heaven knows they ripped off Leon, Rose and a lot of good people in Redford Township. That said, at this point, if they offered to help for free I'd tell them to jump in the Detroit River. Which, like a lot of their shoddily recruited circulators, isn't found anywhere in Andy Dillon's district. This one's over. It's done. Finished. Hopefully folks accept that quickly because there's a lot of hope for progress and change across Michigan this fall, including Dillon's Wayne County district. There's a time and a place for belly-aching and looking at the past. But there's a time too for moving towards the future. (That's approximately NOW, by the way...)
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Closing the books on the recall trainwreck | 7 comments (7 topical, 0 hidden)
Closing the books on the recall trainwreck | 7 comments (7 topical, 0 hidden)
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